Friday morning, the 28th of October, the final session of the Digital
Pioneer Academy 2007 and the presentation of the ‘Open Doors’
publication took place. The meeting was held at PICNIC Cross Media
Week in Amsterdam on Friday 28 September 2007 between 09.00 en 12.00
in ‘Het Ketelhuis’ Amsterdam.

Digital Pioneer Academy
Since April 2007 eleven contestants have been working on their
Digital Pioneer Businessplan. During this event, the contestants
presented their plans to a group of experts and competed for three
prizes (one of € 25.000, one of € 15.000 and one of € 10.000).

The Academy is a spin off from the Digital Pioneer fund. This fund
gives financial and organizational support to small grass root
communities that realize innovative projects in the public domain on
the Internet.

Many of the more than 130 projects that are supported by Digital
Pioneers have a common problem: after a successful start, projects
have a hard time to scale up their initiative and to build a sound
financial and organizational basis. Therefore the Digital Pioneer
Academy was started.

The winners
Mimoa
The first prize, which consisted of 25.000 euro, was earned by
www.Mimoa.eu. Mimoa is an Internet platform for modern architecture
in Europe. Mimoa is owned and developed by Naomi Schiphorst and Mieke
Vullings. Both are architects and proud of the Dutch tradition in
this area. The jury praised the project on its strong focus on a
niche market, its thorough analysis of its users groups, and its
overall appeal. The jury has great trust in the growth potential of
Mimoa.

Floss Manuals
The second prize (15.000 euro) has been won by Adam Hyde with Floss
Manuals (www.flossmanuals.net) . The platform of Floss Manuals offers
free manuals for open source software. Adam managed to build a
convincing business model around his project. The jury praised its
built up network with Wikipedia and O’Reilly. Adam breathes Floss,
and is very dedicated to its success.

Beelden uit ons Verleden
The third prize went to Beelden uit ons Verleden (Images from our
Past website is not online yet). This project aims to become the
national collection of private visual and audiovisual archival
material. Initiators Carla Mulder and Jan Gilliam van Arkel were
praised for their research on the subject and their ability to prove
the social relevance.

More information on Digitale Pionieers and the Digital Pioneer
Academy you can find on www.digitalepioniers.nl/ www.digitalpioneers.org